It has historically been common that absorbent articles, in general including diapers, adult incontinence products, underarm sweat products, collar inserts, sanitary napkins and pantiliners are provided in a color communicating a hygienic condition. This conventionally resulted in white or predominantly white articles. This did fit well with the historically predominant undergarment color in which these articles are worn namely white undergarments. As a result white pantiliners or white sanitary napkin are not easily recognizable when used in such white undergarments.
Very recently fashion has led women more frequently to use other colors than white undergarments. This has been dictated not only by fashion itself but also as a result of the development of clothing which has a certain translucency and allows the color of the undergarment to be recognized. Consequently, it has become more desirable to use undergarments of a matching color or of a skin color. Furthermore very recently so-called G-String undergarments or “Tanga-Slips” have become widely used in particular by a younger generation women, which are all in the fertile, i.e. menstruating, age group. These so-called string tangas are particularly used to prevent easy recognition of the contour of the undergarment through tight fitting clothes. For these undergarments it is also highly desirable to have sanitary napkins or pantiliners available which match the color of these garments in order to prevent a color-based recognition of the presence of such articles (under the assumption that modern clothing can be translucent).
It is therefore quite apparent that a colored sanitary napkin or pantiliner matching the color of the undergarment would be desirable. For sanitary napkins or pantiliners having so-called wings which are folded around the outside of the undergarment this is even more important since the wing part of the sanitary napkin or pantiliner is on purpose folded onto the outside of the undergarment and therefore easily visible, depending on the clothing worn over the undergarment.
This, however, conflicts drastically with the possibilities of manufacturers of such articles. First of all the number of colors is inevitably very large, since in particular black, dark brown, light brown, red, green, blue and—more fashion oriented—purple undergarments are broadly available. In order to provide such a variety of colors, multiplied by the number of different product sizes to cater for the different needs of the user would mean for a manufacturer to have an extremely large number of articles which have to made and stocked. At the same time the shops in which such products would be sold would have to provide enormous space in order to stock and offer each variety for the potential customer.
Therefore the problem exists as to how to provide a sanitary napkin or pantiliner such that its color does not create a highlight, relative to the color of the undergarment in which it is worn. In other words: an at least partially invisible sanitary napkin or pantiliner would be desirable.
EP 322 309 describes a disposable clothing shield to protect clothing from stains which is visibly masked through the clothing. This is achieved by providing a thin shield which has an outer surface which randomly scatters light reflected from it so that the shape is not reflected or radiated therefrom. This is achieved by a complicated method of providing randomly dispersed white spunbonded fibres onto a beige colored thermoplastic film layer.
It is therefore an objective of the present invention to provide absorbing articles, particularly sanitary napkins or pantiliners which are made such that when worn they are not easily recognizable due to the color difference to the undergarment or more generally under the garment in which they are worn, which are simple and cheap to mass manufacture.